Industrial and commercial firms frequently require the use of industrial solutions, including cleaning solutions, disinfectant solutions and solvents, for various purposes. In hospitals, for example, disinfectant solutions are often used on floors and other surfaces to assure a clean environment. Traditional technology for disbursing and handling these industrial solutions typically involves shipping the solution in bulk to the facility requiring the solution, and measuring out quantities of the solution for each use required. This system is disadvantageous in that it requires the shipping of a large amount of bulky, heavy fluid.
Advances in the field of disbursing solutions have lead to the use of concentrates dispensed from a central location for dilution and use in various locations within an industrial or commercial facility. The concentrates can be either in a liquid or a solid form. While the use of concentrates is an improvement over shipping fully diluted solutions, for large industrial and commercial facilities this system requires either multiple dispensing locations or repeated trips over large distances to return to the dispensing location for refilling individual dispensing containers.
The use of mixing bags having a sealed pouch or pocket with a concentrate is known, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,533,807 and 3,542,566, both to Wakefield. Other patents disclose systems in which two substances are kept separate until mixing is desired, as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,741,383 to Wittwer, U.S. Pat. No. 3,797,646 to Horn, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,264,007 to Hunt.
It is known to break the seal between the two compartments of a dispensing bag by pulling apart the two sides of the bag. U.S. Pat. No. 4,711,359 to White et al., discloses a selectively openable seal line 54 that can be opened or broken by grasping the opposite sheets or sides of the bag. The sides of the bag must be pulled to break the seal prior to insertion of the bag into the bottle or container.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,540,089 to Maloney discloses a process for forming in-line bags suitable for filling with different mixtures. The bags are formed from rolls of film, and the bags, still attached to each other, are wound up in a tear off roll before being shipped to a bag filing facility. At the bag filling facility the bags are filled and detached from the roll and packaged for sale.
It would be advantageous if a system could be developed for more simply handling, disbursing and diluting concentrated materials. Such a system would preferably allow the user of the concentrated materials to avoid touching or contact with the concentrate. Further, such a system would also eliminate the need for those using or dispensing the solution to return to a central dispensing station for refilling individual dispensing containers. Further, such a system would enable the efficient dispensing of premeasured quantities of concentrated materials.